"All this region is very level and full of forests, vines and butternut trees. No Christian has ever visited this land and we had all the misery of the world trying to paddle the river upstream." Samuel de Champlain

"2005 Energy Policy: The G.W. Bush administration policy that has been criticized for stripping the teeth from the Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act with regard to hydrofracture drilling. A report for Congress explained those exemptions. The Frack Act, still in committee in Congress, seeks to reverse them.

Acid mine drainage (AMD): Runoff caused by water flowing over and through sulfur-rich areas, such as coal or metal mines, is one of the main pollutants of surface water in this region, raising long-term ecological and economic concerns.This has had a huge environmental impact in Pennsylvania, especially in the western part of the state. There are proposals to use AMD as a source for frack water (see definition below) with the help of recycling facilities to reduce AMD’s impact on waterways.

Appalachian basin: The subterranean geologic formations that roughly follow the Appalachian Mountain range. Drillers have started to use the term to refer to any exploitable formations in this area – shale gas, oil or coal, regardless of whether they are found in the mountains at all. Drillers have claimed the Appalachian basin stretches from New York to Tennessee; others say it extends well into Canada or that it’s analogous to the entire eastern seaboard. The United States Department of Energy associates the Appalachian basin with the Marcellus Shale, the Devonian Shale, primarily of Ohio, and the Utica Shale in Virginia.

Brine: A salt water and chemical mix that is produced after fracking a well. This liquid comes out of the ground with very high Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) levels and often toxic substances such as barium and strontium. After use in fracking, brine must be treated as contaminated waste water

Clean Water Act: The federal law that regulates discharges into waterways.

Containment ponds (also called reserve pits): Man-made ponds intended to capture waste from power plants, industrial complexes, and drilling sites. Challenges in using this conventional method include managing the volume of waste product; installation and maintenance costs; contamination of land and/or water due to pit failure and associated cleanup costs; potential for pollution due to leaching.

Closed loop system: Generally refers to drillers operating with a water cycle that is never exposed to the open air, unlike containment ponds. Closed loop drillers might operate on a well pad that is too isolated or too small to allow for construction of a pond.

Cryogenic plant: A type of natural gas processing plant that uses low temperatures to condense the collected natural gas to a liquid state, making it easier to separate the component hydrocarbons and transport the gas.

Department of Environmental Protection (DEP): This state agency has permitting and primary regulatory authority over the natural gas industry in the state.

Directional drilling: The process that allows drillers to sink a well to a certain depth and then aim it in a lateral direction toward a target area. Directional drilling allows greater access to hard to reach stores of gas or oil and it means drillers can cover more territory with one well.

Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR): The state agency that issues permits and enacts leasing policy for drilling on state-owned lands. The DCNR does not regulate wells. Currently close to half of all state lands are leased to drillers, including areas designated as wildlife preserves.

Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC): This multi-state agency includes the governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and New York on its board. It regulates water withdrawals from the Delaware River as well as effluent into the river. It has been at the center of the debate over drilling in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Recently it issued an executive order halting most drilling in its watershed. It has promised to study the impacts of hydrofracturing and issue new permanent rules, possibly in the fall of 2010.

Dry gas: One of two types of raw natural gas, dry gas contains low amounts of condensable compounds, also called natural gas liquids or NGLs (such as butane and propane), making it more “pipeline ready.” Gas is considered to be “dry” when it is composed of almost entirely methane.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Federal agency that regulates industrial impacts on the environment. Despite its environmental mandate, the EPA has shown little activity in Pennsylvania since Marcellus shale drilling began in 2005. The federal agency began a two-year study this summer aimed at considering new rules for the industry after 2012.

Exploration and Production companies (E & P): They are the first step in the process of harvesting natural gas; they find the natural gas, drill, and get the gas out of the ground. Midstream companies then collect and process the natural gas (using cryogenic or non-cryogenic plants). Pipeline companies then take over and transport the gas.

Evaporation pits: A common brine disposal technique intended to recover the brine product (water evaporates leaving behind a concentrated salt solution). Best used in arid regions because rainfall will hinder the process. As with containment ponds, there are concerns regarding leaching and overflow, as well as air pollution.

Fish and Boat Commission: Because of the Marcellus gas drilling impact on waterways, this state department has also emerged as an active regulator of Marcellus shale drilling in Pennsylvania.

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking,”, “hyrdofracking”): The process of creating fractures in non-porous rock, such as Marcellus shale, using specially formulated water-based solutions forced into wells at extremely high pressure; the cracks in the rock allow for the release and collection of the natural gas.

The Frack Act: The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act seeks to reverse some of the policies enacted in the 2005 energy policy and compel full disclosure of the chemicals, and specifically the concentrations of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. Currently, the amount of each chemical is considered proprietary information. Democratic Senator Bob Casey (Pennsylvania) and Congresswoman Diana DeGette (Colorado) are the primary sponsors of the bill.

Frack fluid: This is the water-based compound drillers use to fracture the shale. It’s composed of very large amounts of water – up to several million gallons — mixed with any number of chemicals, plus sand. It is pumped into wells under very high pressure to break up underground rock formations, which releases natural gas. The environmental impact of frack fluid has been a running controversy in Pennsylvania, almost since Marcellus drilling began in the state.

Frack water recycling: The reuse of water or brine that comes up out of the well after the shale has been fractured. Companies treat the used fluid and dilute it with new fresh water. After Pennsylvania passed stricter limits on total dissolved solids (TDS) discharge, companies have been recycling more frack fluid.

Held by production: A legal process that allows exploration and production companies to extend the terms of the original contract for lease and royalties for the life of a producing well, even if that term goes beyond the stipulated term of the original lease.

Horizontal well: A technique in well drilling common to shale gas production that allows for fewer drill sites, while increasing the access to the reserves underground; used in combination with hydraulic fracturing.

Injection wells: Deep wells used worldwide to dump contaminants, often suspended in water, so that they are more or less permanently sequestered below the aquifer. Injection wells are used by many industries. They are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, which also classifies them roughly by the type of liquid being put back into the ground.

Lease rates: How much a company pays for land or mineral rights. These are typically executed in five-year increments.

Marcellus Shale: Shale is one of the most prolific types of sedimentary rock whose density and impermeability provide tight stores for hydrocarbon reserves [http://geology.com/usgs/marcellus-shale/] below. Marcellus Shale is a rock formation running through about two-thirds of Pennsylvania, and areas of New York and West Virginia. Geologists estimate that there is a large enough natural gas reserve within the shale to power the United States for one to eight years.

Mineral rights: Legal rights that allow for search and removal of minerals on a particular parcel of land.

Mud or drilling mud: Also referred to as drilling fluid, drilling mud is the oil- or water-based liquid compound used to lubricate and cool working drills. The specific ingredients vary according to company and drill site. As with fracking fluids, exploration and production companies are not required to publish the ingredients or their specific formulas.

Natural gas liquids (NGL): Components of natural gas, such as propane, butane, pentane, hexane and heptane, that are liquid at surface temperatures and pressures (unlike other components of the natural gas, such as methane and ethane, that need to be cooled before they liquefy). Natural gas liquids are considered valuable by-products of natural gas processing. When natural gas contains NGL, it is called “wet gas;” without these compounds, it is called “dry gas.”

Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Act: State law that gives the Department of Environmental Protection regulatory and permitting authority over the oil and gas industry. DEP asserts that this law gives it primacy, even over local regulations, when it comes to permitting new wells, but the state Supreme Court has allowed local municipalities some authority regarding well zoning.

Pipeline: Underground or surface tubing or piping that is installed across states, countries and continents to deliver fuel. New pipelines are being built in Pennsylvania and New Jersey to transport natural gas, liquid natural gas, and water to make gas production more economical. New gas pipelines are also planned to connect many western states more effectively and to link Alaska with drillers and market sources in Canada and the United States.

Pooling or land pooling: A legal process that allows exploration and production companies to compel unwilling land and mineral rights holders to lease or sell their land and/or mineral rights for exploration, drilling, or pipeline installation if enough of their neighbors have already agreed. Government agencies require a minimum number of acres of land before granting a well permit; with pooling, companies can collect smaller tracts of land that will accumulate to this total minimum acreage. Pooling is not a law in Pennsylvania, but there are legal proposals to make it so.

Propping agent: An additive to the frack fluid, often sand or other granular substance, that props open micro-fractures of the shale, allowing gas to seep into the well bore.

Pumping station or Compression station: These pump natural gas through pipelines at a rate of about 700 million cubic feet per day. They tend to be situated 50 to 100 miles apart.

Rig: The physical apparatus used to drill and frack wells. These are large portable operations that are assembled on site and disassembled when the well has been capped or brought into production.

Roughneck: Workers who maintain and operate a drill rig; usually unskilled or semi-skilled manual laborers with salaries ranging from $27,000 to $54,000. They usually work 12-hour shifts, and can be away from home for as many as six months at a time.

Royalties: The amount exploration and production companies pay to the mineral rights owners of a producing well. Pennsylvania state law requires this rate be no less than 12% of the market price per 1000 cubic feet of gas on the day that gas comes out of the ground. Often mineral rights owners have negotiated higher royalties. It has also been common for E&P companies to deduct well production expenses from these royalties.

Safe Drinking Water Act: Federal law that regulates drinking water quality.

Shale basin: An underground deposit of shale, often in a layer that extends along a plane at a certain depth under the surface. There are many different types of shale, each with certain defining characteristics.

Shale gas: Natural gas trapped in a shale formation.

Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC): Regulatory body that governs water withdrawals from the Susquehanna River, but it does not have regulatory control over what flows into the river.

Total Dissolved Solids (TDS): The amount of salt and minerals that are suspended in water. TDS occur naturally in groundwater, but at high concentrations, TDS can be corrosive, and can cause ground (drinking) water to be classified as contaminated. New Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection rules on TDS discharges will take effect in January 2011, and will require discharges into Pennsylvania waterways to meet stricter standards of 500 parts per million.

Unconventional fuels: Any fuels that companies produce in ways other than traditional vertical oil wells. These include shale gasses and coal bed methane.

Vertical wells: Traditional gas and oil well technique that bores straight down into a reserve. Vertical wells may be cheaper to develop, but are considered to have a larger environmental footprint.

Well bore: This is the entire length of hole that the drill makes in the ground; there is a great deal of engineering software for the design and casing of a well bore, as it is integral to the overall structural integrity of the well.

Well casing: Steel or cement containment that is installed on the inside of the well bore intended to keep gas or oil from seeping out of the wells into the surrounding ground.

Wet gas: Natural gas that contains natural gas liquids, which are heavier than gaseous methane. Some of these, such as propane, butane, pentane, hexane, and heptane, may come out of the well in liquid form or may need to be processed. The Marcellus shale gas in Washington County has been described as a wet gas. Natural gas liquids are considered valuable by-products of natural gas processing."

Canada's groundwater situation isn't as dire as that of some nations included in a new Dutch study that says "ecological disasters and even famine" are possible due to depleted levels. But Canadians aren't in the clear, says one water expert. The report from Utrecht University, scheduled for release in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, says the U.S., India, Pakistan and China are the sources of greatest depletion of groundwater resources.

"The drier areas of the world where surface water is scarce, people often make use of pumped groundwater. This groundwater is used for irrigating crops, as water for drinking or for industry," says a news release from the university. "The result is that rivers and wetlands dry up and groundwater levels sink so deep that it becomes impossible to inflate. This depletion of groundwater resources can lead to ecological disasters and even famine."

John Pomeroy, Canada Research Chair in water resources and climate change at the University of Saskatchewan, said Friday (September 24 2010) that Canada is "ahead of the game" in terms of groundwater supply, but added many questions are left unanswered because monitoring supplies are difficult.

"It's a funny resource because we can't see it, we tend not to think about it and presume it's OK," Pomeroy said. "It's interesting when there's such a massive global reduction of supply and . . . that's a real worry. We're relatively fortunate here that we don't have major agricultural use of groundwater.

"The Canadian situation is not as dire as some of these places around the world, but we've identified many threats to Canadian groundwater," including rapid urbanization, climate change, increasing energy production and contamination. Pomeroy said that in much of Canada, groundwater is found in streams during the winter. In 1990, there were about 3,600 stream gauges across the country, but that number is now down to about 2,900, making it more difficult to calculate recharge rates.

Roughly 30 per cent of Canadians depend on groundwater for their drinking water, Pomeroy said, while 80 per cent of rural Canadians use groundwater for all uses. "Our demand for water is increasing, so we need to know much more about its availability," he said.

Pomeroy said the Canadian Prairies are unique in that they use very little groundwater for irrigation, unlike similar regions in the United States, which depend heavily on groundwater to maintain agriculture operations, thus forcing a lot of strain on supplies in that country. He said it's likely groundwater would be used in the Prairies if it were more feasible, but said most supplies are in a layer of clay and recharge rates are very low.

Groundwater depletion is also leading to an increase in sea level, the report says. It says that groundwater use for agriculture, human consumption and industry results in an annual sea-level jump of about 0.8 millimetres — or about one-quarter of the estimated increase of 3.1 millimetres, behind the leading causes of warming sea water and glacial melting.

The study says the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recognized the role groundwater use played in rising sea levels, but the extent of its impact was not known. "Our study confirms that groundwater depletion is indeed a significant factor," Marc Bierkens, the study's lead author, said in the news release. "(The areas of highest depletion) are also areas where food and water are not sustainable and which will have important problems to be expected," Bierkens said."

Critics of factory farms say we pay a high price for low-cost food. If you adjust for inflation and income, Americans have never spent less on food than they have in recent years. And yet many feel we've also never paid such a high price. U.S. Department of Agriculture figures show the average American spent just 9.5 percent of his or her disposable income on food last year, a lower percentage than in any country in the world. And although meat consumption has risen slightly over the past 40 years, its impact on the pocketbook is less than half of what it was in 1970, falling from 4.1 percent to 1.6 percent in 2008.

The majority of this cheap protein is delivered by "factory farms" that house thousands of animals in confinement. These concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, produce mass quantities of food at low cost. But the system also has created disasters like last month's recall of half a billion salmonella-tainted eggs. Critics say the consolidation of food production has led to environmental damage, the loss of millions of small independent farms, rising health care expenditures and billions in tax-funded subsidies to produce cheap animal feed.

"Cheap is in the eyes of the accountant," said Daniel Imhoff, a researcher who edited the new book "CAFO: The Tragedy of Industrial Animal Factories." "Somehow we've forgotten how to add the total costs of cheap meat production to our health, environment, the loss of vibrant rural communities with lots of family farms."

The costs not calculated in the direct consumer price of meat and other animal products — called externalities — touch on a variety of issues. Among them:

Health

Meat producers put antibiotics in feed to make the animals grow faster and to prevent disease. But this summer, officials from several federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, testified in support of new guidelines that would curb CAFOs' nontherapeutic use of antibiotics, citing a rise in dangerous antibiotic-resistant infections.

A cheap meat supply also may affect health by encouraging people to eat more of it. Americans already eat more protein than the USDA dietary guidelines recommend — an average of 5.5 ounces of protein from meat, fish, beans and nuts combined daily. The USDA is expected to add eggs to that list of protein sources this year.

"So maybe it's time to step back and ask if it really needs to be that cheap," said David Kirby, author of "Animal Factory: The Looming Threat of Industrial Pig, Dairy and Poultry Farms to Humans and the Environment." "Maybe we don't need so much. Maybe we need better-quality animal products in moderation and less regularly."

Food safety

While some CAFO supporters say these operations benefit from having enough money to hire consultants who help create safer and more efficient facilities, the multiple violations at the huge Wright County Egg operation at the center of the salmonella outbreak show that larger doesn't always mean safer.

Last year, the Consumers Union found that two-thirds of American supermarket chickens they tested were contaminated with salmonella or campylobacter, another bacterium that can sicken humans. As long as the factory-farming system is in place, stringent safety rules and better enforcement are needed, Kirby said. "Right now we just don't have enough inspectors and boots on the ground," he said.

Taxpayer dollars

The meat industry doesn't receive direct subsidies from the government. However, it relies heavily on cheap corn and soy feed whose farming soaks up billions in subsidies each year. It also receives government grants for CAFO pollution management, and the government bought $150 million of pork from an industry damaged last year by swine flu fears.

Environment

On small traditional farms, animal waste is used to fertilize crops. On CAFOs, there are not enough crops nearby to absorb the enormous amount of waste, which must be stored, pumped out and transported away. Often, environmentalists say, the excrement creates toxic fumes (both while stored and when sprayed onto fields), leaks into waterways, runs off fields and spills from lagoons and transit vehicles.

In Iowa, home to hundreds of CAFOs, the Department of Natural Resources recorded that 99 waterways were contaminated enough in 2008 to cause fish kills and that 47 of the incidents that caused the contamination could be positively traced back to animal waste. Such contamination has killed as many as 150,000 aquatic animals at a time. Activists say such figures underestimate the problem because they account only for spills that are reported and investigated.

An analysis by the Chesapeake Bay Program found that agriculture — both livestock and crops — is the single biggest source of pollution in the bay, contributing 42 percent of the nitrogen, 46 percent of the phosphorus and 76 percent of the sediment in the troubled waterway.

This year the Environmental Protection Agency found that 21 percent of the groundwater sampled in Washington's agricultural Yakima Valley contained unsafe levels of nitrates, leaving it unfit for residents to use. A final report is due out in coming weeks, but nitrogen-rich animal waste is a suspected contributor.

Farms

Representatives of the meat industry acknowledge that consolidation has contributed to the loss of nearly 5 million independent family farms since 1935. Critics — including the USDA — say these practices put the remaining independent farmers at a disadvantage, especially when independents are given a lower price for their meat than the ones operating under contract.

Animal welfare

Supporters of CAFOs say housing animals this way protects them from predators and harsh weather and makes it easier to feed and medicate them. Animal rights supporters and other opponents say the crowded indoor conditions lead to stress that affects the animals' health and increases the likelihood of mass infection. They also object to what they view as mistreatment of the animals, such as the clipping of chicken beaks to prevent closely packed birds from wounding each other.

In conclusion:

Imhoff responds that investing in more sustainable food practices would save money elsewhere. "What we will hear time and time again from the industry is that we can't afford to have increases in food production costs, but we haven't tried," he said. "And I don't think as a society, as a country, people wouldn't pay more if they understood what it took to make the food cheap."

Kirby added: "It's strange, in this country we are crazy about quality control for our kids' toys, bedding, car seats … but then we will go out and buy the cheapest food we can find. "This is what we put in our mouth, what we feed our children," he said. "Why aren't we regulating it better and why is cheap such an important factor?""

And, my fellow Quebecers, don't think we're very different here, in "La Belle Province"! Because of our climate, fattening pigs and growing corn is even more expensive and taxpayers' money is wasted at a grand scale in this corrupted system !

Celtic, as operator, has drilled and completed its first exploration horizontal well at Kaybob South targeting the Devonian Duvernay shale formation. The well, which is located at 00/15-33-060-20W5, was drilled and cased over 42 days at a cost of $4.0 million. The horizontal lateral was 1,787 metres, which was 500 metres longer than originally planned, allowing the addition of two frac stages making the total planned frac stages to 13 and leaving a 175 metre interval, which could be fractured by perforating.

During the completion of the well, six stages were fractured over a time interval of 10 days. Each stage was fractured with approximately 100 tonnes of sand and 1,500 cubic metres of slick water. While attempting to fracture the seventh stage, it is believed that a rupture in the casing occurred at the heal portion of the horizontal leg preventing the fracture of the remaining stages. It was decided to flow test the well with the six stimulated stages while determining the feasibility of fracturing the remaining stages. Tubing and recorders were run and the well has flowed on test starting September 11th. Prior to the flow test, the well flowed on clean-up for a total of 140 hours.

After three days on test, the well is currently producing natural gas at a rate of 2.1 MMCF per day and 56° API condensate. The gas is liquids rich and is expected to yield total liquids of approximately 75 barrels per MMCF of raw gas including free condensate."

Like I've always said, "Know thy ennemy!" And in doing that, I've always learned a bit more about their weaknesses. When they say there is absolutely no risk of contamination and then I read about incidences like the one above, I know they're lying through their teeth...

Great Lakes pollution is getting worse because sewage systems are outdated and Ontario’s north is turning into a Wild West for miners and forestry companies, warns Environmental Commissioner Gord Miller. His annual report slams Premier Dalton McGuinty’s government for talking a good game on the environment but not following through, putting at risk everything from drinking water to air quality and wildlife.

The 228-page volume released by the province’s independent environmental watchdog sounds a number of alarm bells, including the bypassing of a full environmental assessment for a new gas-fired power plant beside the Holland Marsh in York Region, lax air quality standards and dangers from landfills closed years ago. “This government rightly prides itself on the progress it has made in passing legislation to protect the environment, but actions on the ground often undermine it,” Miller said Wednesday.

For example, there aren’t enough government employees to police mining claims in the north, the subject of recent legislation to protect massive boreal forests key to cleansing carbon emissions from the air in the fight against climate change. Two lines of mining claims stretching hundreds of kilometres were staked by mining exploration companies to make way for future railway tracks out of the “Ring of Fire,” a vast area rich in gold, diamonds and chromite. The government is “clearly understaffed and under resourced, because they are building mining camps and airstrips under their noses, so to speak,” Miller said.

It’s been 27 years since the province tightened cleanliness standards for sewage treatment plants emptying waste water into the Great Lakes — a major problem because of the fast-growing population in southern Ontario. “We have the technology to treat the sewage to very low concentrations,” Miller said, noting the Americans have done a better job through their Clean Water Act and have cleaner beaches and shorelines than Ontario.

The report also dubs hundreds of closed landfill sites as “forgotten polluters,” with the potential to contaminate nearby groundwater, streams and lakes or release greenhouse gases into the sky. The problem is that the environment ministry has “lost track” of many of them and more monitoring is needed."

Thousands of dead fish floated along Bayou Robinson on Sunday (September 19 2010), the latest in a string of four major fish kills plaguing Plaquemines Parish. "Millions of fish, absolutely, millions," said P.J. Hahn, Plaquemines Parish Coastal Zone Management director. "We're used to seeing fish kills out here at this time of year, but not at this number, mass number of fish that are dying, and not in the frequency that they are occurring now."

What the four areas have in common is not just the fish kills, but also the fact they were previously hit by oil from the spill, prompting parish leaders to ask the state to test the dead fish. "We don't have the expertise. I've got a health department with six people in it,” said Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is the responding agency for fish kills. They sent biologists out to the sites and blamed the kills on low oxygen levels in the water -- a conclusion they reached without doing a single test on the dead fish.

Pausina said the agency's teams looked at the fish kills, so they concluded an offshore dead zone, which occurs annually, forced fish towards inland waterways. "If the tide drops they get trapped in there and they die. There’s just too much fish jammed in there, and that’s kind of what we’re seeing right now that’s happening along the coast,” Pausina said. No further testing was done, Pausina said, because the teams dispatched to the fish kills didn't see any oil related pollution.

Yet Pausina said the agency recognizes that the fish kills present a perception problem, especially for those trying to get the message out that Gulf seafood is safe to eat. Within 30 minutes of our interview, a spokesperson for Wildlife and Fisheries contacted Eyewitness News, saying they would now in fact be testing the fish from the fish kill in Bayou Robinson."

That's what infuriates me about scientific people: they have such a obtuse view of the world. What caused the offshore dead zone that prompted the fish to go up the bayou, do you think? Don't you think it could be caused by the spill in the Gulf? The fish are running scared! (okay, okay, swimming scared...)

A spokesman for the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission says there are no health and safety concerns about the mildly radioactive material disposed off in an open pit near Penobsquis. The material came from a site near Sussex where Corridor Resources is doing exploration for oil and gas. Aurele Gervais said in an interview from Ottawa Monday the material measured about 2,000 litres. "The material can be disposed off without any radiological concerns," he said.

Norman Miller, president of Corridor Resources, said the "very low radioactive material" is used in a sand that determines the shape and size of existing fractures in the earth and that data is used to measure gas flow potential. "There was a rupture of the surface line and the material flowed out on the surface," he said in an interview from Halifax. He said it was cleaned up and taken to a private land site about two kilometres away where it has been placed in an open pit. "There is no need to bury the material at the temporary site," Miller said. "It can stay there indefinitely, but under an agreement (with the land owner) we are going to remove it by the time we come on stream with the gas by February 2007."

But the agreement with pit owner gives Miller's firm until Sept. 15, 2009, to completely remove the radioactive mixture. He said other material has been dumped at the site before including drilling fluid or mud and some other waste materials.

Gervais said the commission has confirmed with the licensee that the radioactive material was sent to a burial pit. "The clean-up procedures of the affected area were reviewed by the CNSC and deemed appropriate," he said. He said now that some people have expressed concern about the disposal, a CNSC field inspector will follow up with a visit to the area as soon as possible to confirm that the material was properly disposed of. He could not give an approximate date for the visit.

Ian McConnell, national manger for Protechnics, a division of Core Laboratories of Canada, that has been licensed by the nuclear safety commission to do the cleanup at the Corridor site, said the material has "extremely small amounts of radiation. "We have to use a very sensitive instrument to find it," said McConnell.

Explaining the process in an interview from Calgary, McConnell said radioactive material in a vial about the size of a thumb is mixed in with 40 tonnes of sand. "You have to eat 200 pounds of the material to reach internal (radiation exposure) limit or you have to stand beside it for three years to get the same level of exposure," he said.

Donald Beyea, manager of nuclear medicine program at the Atlantic Regional Health Science Corporation, also said low levels of radiation are not harmful. He said the hospital uses radiation for diagnostic purposes. Its affect stays for about six hours after the procedure, he said.

Area resident Beth Nixon said she is not that concerned about radiation exposure now that they have explained that its level is very low. But she is still concerned about "the jelly like substance" that is mixed in with the sand. It smells like diesel or oil, she added.

But MConnell says it is simply water, which has been thickened by adding a jelly."

First Nations leaders are heading to Washington on Monday (September 20 2010) to persuade officials to reject a pipeline project that would pump more "dirty oil" from Alberta into the United States. The delegation is composed of two community leaders from Canada and another from Minnesota.

Francois Paulette, of the Smith’s Landing Treaty 8 First Nation, will explain to U.S. politicians that pollutants from the oilsands already affect more than 30 downstream First Nations communities. Increasing oilsands production would make matters worse, he said. I think the Americans really need to see the big picture," the former Dene Nation chief said in an interview from Fort Smith, N.W.T. before leaving for Washington. "I hope that they rethink their plan of engaging our pipeline." In fact, Paulette wants a moratorium on the Keystone XL pipeline expansion. "The oil that they're buying is the dirty oil," he said.

Paulette will be joined in Washington by George Poitras, a former chief of Alberta's Mikisew Cree First Nation, and Marty Cobenais, a member of the Indigenous Environmental Network. From Monday until Wednesday, the leaders have meetings scheduled with the State Department, a White House environment council, the Department of Interior, the Canadian Embassy, and congressional offices. Paulette said he will point to the findings of a recent study that linked oilsands operations to high levels of lead, mercury and other heavy metals in the Athabasca River system.

Last week, a group of scientists and aboriginals asked Ottawa to step in to see if pollution from the oilsands is making fish sick. Paulette said more and more downstream catches — a network that stretches 1,600 kilometres — contain fish with soft, mushy flesh. "It's a big mess, but this mess is reaching the Arctic Ocean and we need to do more," said Paulette, whose meetings are sponsored by the Pembina Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council. "The whole way of life of the indigenous people is disrupted."

Keystone XL has been approved by Canadian regulators, and is now awaiting a green light from the U.S. State Department. The TransCanada Corp. pipeline would reach all the way to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Earlier this month, First Nations and environmental groups met with Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, during her visit to Canada. They urged the powerful politician to demand cleaner oil from Canada and to call on Ottawa to take a tougher stance on the oilsands industry."

A plan to ship 16 steam generators on the Detroit River and Great Lakes has sparked an international outcry. What alarms residents on the U.S. and Canadian sides of the waterways is the material inside the generators -- nuclear waste. The generators, which are the size of a city bus, were used by a nuclear power plant in Canada that now wants to send them to a recycling plant in Sweden.

Environmentalists and elected officials said a shipping mishap could contaminate the lakes, a source of drinking water in the region. They're also worried the plan could lead to more radioactive waste being transported on the Great Lakes. "It's a bad idea," said Michael Keegan, chairman of the Monroe-based Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes. "It sets a dangerous precedent."

U.S. and Canadian towns along the proposed route are miffed they were never told about the plan. Alerted by a Michigan environmentalist perusing the records of Canada's nuclear regulatory agency, three Canadian mayors and two Michigan state legislators opposed the shipment. An online petition against the project was signed by 60 environmental groups and 2,517 people.

It's one more threat to the Great Lakes, which already contends with pollution and Asian carp, said state Rep. Sarah Roberts, D-St. Clair Shores. The Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission, which is deciding whether to approve the shipment, originally didn't plan to seek public input. After several weeks of criticism, however, it scheduled a public hearing for Sept. 29.

Bruce Power, the Canadian firm that operates the power plant, said the shipment is safe. The radiation is limited to the interior of the generators, whose openings have been sealed to prevent anything from leaking out, said spokesman John Peevers. And the amount of nuclear material is small, he added. The 16 generators were removed from the Bruce Power plant in the mid-1990s and placed in a concrete warehouse near the firm's headquarters in Tiverton, Ontario, which is on Lake Huron across from the Michigan Thumb. They were going to stay there permanently, but Bruce Power learned about a Swedish company that could recycle 90 percent of the machines, Peevers said.

The recycling process reduces the radioactivity of the material, which can then be used as scrap. The remaining 10 percent is too contaminated to recycle and will be returned to Bruce Power for storage.

According to the plan, a freighter would carry the generators down Lake Huron, the St. Clair River, Lake St. Clair, the Detroit River, Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, the St. Lawrence River and then across the Atlantic Ocean.

The permit didn't require a public hearing because generators are considered to have a low level of radiation, said commission spokesman Aurele Gervais. Such permits are issued by a designated officer from the commission, not the eight-member board.

"It should be stopped," said Kay Cumbow, an environmentalist from Brown City near Lapeer, who was one of the first people to discover the proposed shipment. "We have better things to do than put the Great Lakes at risk."

After this shipment, Bruce Power eventually plans to send 16 more generators to Sweden."

The nuclear plants that are built in Canada and should be dismantled, recycled and processed here, as close as possible to their initial location. If that cannot be done, then it is another sign that we should not build any more...

I'm the second generation of my family that lives in Richelieu, Quebec, in Canada. My family tree, both from my mother's and my father's side, has its roots in Quebec since the beginning of the 1600s: my ancestors crossed the ocean from France, leaving Perche and Normandy behind them. Both French AND English are my mother tongues: I learned to talk in both languages when I was a baby, and both my parents were perfectly bilingual too.